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Apple recently purchased education-technology startup LearnSprout. LearnSprout develops educational software for schools and teachers to track student performance and other educationalparameters. It seems that Apple would like to build its own educational technology for the educational purpose which will greatly influence classroom and also help in encouraging schools to adopt iPads and other Apple products.

Apple confirmed the education-technology startup LearnSprout’s acquisition with a message:

Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans

According to the educational technology startup, Learnsprout’s educational software is already used in more than 2,500 schools across the United States. Some of the features of this software are:

Aggregating the student grades

Letting teachers and administrators know about a weak student

Allow schools to analyze collected data from the students

Discovering attendance trends across the school

Monitoring Student health, and more.

According to education analysts, Apple is trying to increase its iPad sales. In the recent release of iOS 9.3, Apple has already made an effort to make the tablet more appealing to the education sector.

On the other hand, it is thought to be another strategy to counter the Google for education. Students use Chromebook to access all the data, study materials and submit their assignments as well. Students can also email to their teachers and authorized personals of their schools. Some say still Chromebooks have failed in the long way. Let’s see how Apple’s quality is going to affect the education sector in the US.

What do you think about it? Is Apple going to bring some change in the education system in the US?

Bill Gates And Mark Zuckeberg Join Hands To Change The World With Clean Energy Tech

Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, along with the other most powerful figures in tech world, have come together to launch the Breakthrough Energy Coalition to invest in new clean energy technologies. “We need to move to sources of energy that are affordable and reliable, and don’t produce any carbon,” Gates wrote on his website, announcing the initiative.

Just before the United Nations climate talks in Paris, Bill Gates has announced the Breakthrough Energy Coalition. This is a joint act of more than 20 billionaires who have decided to invest in the clean energy innovation. In Bill Gates’ words: “We need clean-energy innovation and lots of it.”The Breakthrough Energy Coalition comprises of Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Alibaba chief Jack Ma, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, and others. These tech giants will work with the countries that are developing new technologies for zero-emission energy solutions.

Earlier this year, Bill Gates announced plans to invest about $1 billion in clean energy tech over the next 5 years. On his website, he mentioned that when we are willing to fight a global war, this investment will matter less.

Bill Gates and the tech leaders has also announced an initiative called Mission Innovation that involves commitment by 20 countries including USA, China, India, Japan, France, Brazil, and many others. The countries have pledged to double their investment in the clean energy research and development.

The group will consider early stage investment in the basic sectors like electricity generation, agriculture, transportation and energy system efficiency.

Stressing on the need of partnership with government, the coalition says that a transparent and workable structure will make things possible.

It should be noted that most venture capitalists are unwilling to invest in these transformative technologies that as they give returns after a longer period of time. This joint initiative also wishes to link the promising clean energy projects with investors who are ready to enter a long-time commitment.

General availability of Java 9 is announced by Oracle and it is coming on Sep 22nd, 2016. The major feature in Java 9, the module system, will be a boon for developers and it will also bring improved scalability and performance to Java platform.

Java 9 release dates and roadmap is finalized by Oracle and you can expect it to be available by Sep 22nd, 2016. If you are interested in trying it out now, the early access version of JDK 9 is available here. The milestone definitions for JDK9 are the same as those forJDK 8.Modularity via Project Jigsaw is a key feature of Java 9. Java 9 will treat modules as a fundamental new kind of program component, with the system improving scalability and performance, a key Oracle Java official says.

In a blog post this week, Oracle’s Mark Reinhold, chief architect of the Java platform group, discussed the goals of the module system. Chief among them is reliable configuration, to replace the “brittle, error-prone, class-path mechanism” with a means for program components to declare dependencies on each other. Strong encapsulation, which allows a component to declare which public types are accessible to other components, is also a goal.

“These features will benefit application developers, library developers, and implementers of the Java SE Platform itself directly,” said Reinhold. “And indirectly, since they will enable a scalable platform, greater platform integrity, and improved performance.”

Reinhold defined a module as a self-describing collection of code and data. Code within it is organized as a set of packages containing types, essentially classes, and interfaces. Data within modules includes resources and other kinds of static information.

Other than Project Jigsaw and Modularity to Java 9 platform, some of the other notable features worth mentioning are –

jshell – a new command line tool for Java that will add native support and popularize a Java way to REPL (Read-Eval-Print-Loop).

Firefox is one of the most loved web browsers around. The parent organization Mozilla has now revealed that its tight bond with Google doesn’t exist anymore and it is becoming more dependent on newer partners like Baidu, Yahoo, and others.

Few years ago, Mozilla, the open-source organization behind the widely popular Firefox web browser, was dependent on Google for millions. With time, Firefox has become bigger and moved out of the shadow of search engine giant. Now it has become dependent on newer partners like Yahoo, Baidu, and others.Recently, Mozilla has said that it no longer relies on Google for its revenue and is confident that new search engine deals will be even more profitable in the upcoming years.

If you are a long-time Mozilla user, you must be aware of the fact that Google paid Mozilla for the web searches and making it the default search engine. This contract ended last year when in 2014 alone, Mozilla earned $330 million.

Beyond Google, Mozilla turned to Yahoo in the US, Yandex in Russia, and Baidu in China. In Europe and some parts of the world, Google is still the default search engine of Firefox, but the non-profit doesn’t earn any profit.

“We don’t have a commercial relationship with Google at this point. It goes back to our strategy of how we can encourage more competition,” said Denelle Dixon-Thayer, Mozilla’s chief business and legal officer

In the past, Mozilla has repeated its commitment to offer a more open Web and it will gain more independence by making a move in the opposite direction from Google.

Recently, a shift in Mozilla’s overall strategy change is being observed. With Firefox OS and iOS version of Firefox, Mozilla is looking to make a greater impact on the mobile ecosystem and the outcomes of its efforts will be seen in the next decade.

While Google and Apple control your web experience and dictate the choices before you see them, Mozilla looks committed to what is started.

According to a new study, you post more pictures and status updates of “happy times” on Facebook as you are subconsciously jealous of your friends sharing the same. Read more to know about the study and tell us if you agree with this study.

We’ve known this for some time that Facebook is responsible for making you more envious of your friends and their lives. Now a new study is here to support this claim and prove that envy is one of the key factors deciding the content of your Facebook posts.
“Social media participation has been linked to depression, anxiety and narcissistic behaviour, but the reasons haven’t been well-explained,” said Professor Izak Benbasat from Sauder School of Business. In his new study dealing with Facebook and human behaviour, he says that envy is the missing link and reason behind the complications developed in us with time.

As you might have experienced in your personal lives, the travel pictures of your friends on Facebook is the major contributor to this envy, pushing you to click “more perfect” pictures. However, the study reveals that as a result, you don’t post pictures to make others jealous, but to keep appearing on Facebook and compete with your friends.

Also read: Black Hole of World Wide Web: Facebook Is Sucking The Internet In

For his study, Prof. Benbasat and the co-authors of research surveyed 1,193 Facebook users in Germany and asked them questions regarding their Facebook habits.

When people were asked about their negative feelings due to Facebook, 25 percent of users responded with ‘envy’ as their answer. But, when this question was coupled with the situation where others are using Facebook and posting pictures, this percent shoots to 50 percent.

While Facebook is a great medium to connect to our friends and family, the dark side of the social network must be told to common people and young Facebook users. Prof. Benbasat says that more you use Facebook, you’re more likely to consume the negative emotions.